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The New JFK Show #181: Kennedy and US Treasury Notes

Now for those who have cited Marrs’ book as a source on this story, I will repeat, verbatim, what Marrs had to say (and this is what other advocates of this theory contend):

“Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy’s attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the Constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money [and] then loan it to the government at interest.

“He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive order 11,110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one-and two-dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S.currency . . . A number of ‘Kennedy bills’ were indeed issued—the author has a five-dollar bill in his possession with the heading ‘United States
Note’—but were quickly withdrawn after Kennedy’s death.”

MISINFORMATION

Now careful readers of Mans’ book would no doubt turn to his reference notes to find out his source on this information. I’m sorry to report that he cites my own former newspaper, The Spotlight, specifically its issue of October 31, 1988 (page 2), as the source of this information.

The reason why I say I’m sorry is because in the very next issue, our weekly newspaper published an apologetic correction from the editor indicating that the information was erroneous and should never have been published. An inexperienced junior editor had inserted a brief news item in a column in the newspaper and it had slipped past the other editors.

The information, in fact, was based on misinformation that had been circulating for some years in an assortment of other newsletters that had reprinted the story verbatim, without question. Our junior editor had seen the story, found it thought-provoking, and committed it to print.

And now, as a consequence of what we reported, the story has taken on additional life, particularly since Jim Marrs cited it and thousands of others have seen Marrs’ rendition and accepted it as fact. Since then, Mans has been cited on this time and again, on the Internet in particular.

AND NOW FOR THE FACTS . . .

So, essentially, at issue is whether Executive Order (EO) 11,110, signed by JFK on June 4, 1963 and supposedly repealed by LBJ within hours of JFK’s death, approved more than $4 billion in U.S. Notes, issued directly by the treasury, in place of Federal Reserve Notes which earn interest for the Federal Reserve banks.

In fact, it was the Reagan administration—not LBJ—that finally repealed E0 11,110. And this E0 dealt with silver certificates—not greenbacks—when Reagan signed EO 12,608, which revoked several outdated executive orders.

EO 11,110 dealt with granting the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue rules and regulations pertaining to freeing the secretary to act without presidential approval on silver bullion sales. As president, JFK revoked both of these with EO 11,110.

To repeat, the issuance of “greenbacks” (technically known as United States Notes) was not even the subject of JFK’s EO 11,110.

The greenbacks that were issued during the Kennedy administration were issued pursuant to long-standing federal legislation mandating that a certain number of U.S. Notes always be in circulation by the Treasury Department although, as we shall see momentarily, the Treasury has not been following that mandate.

For those not versed in the intricacies of finance and the Federal Reserve controversy, here’s a brief description of U.S. Notes as written by the late Gertrude Coogan, a long-time student of the money question:

“U.S. Notes are the kind of money for which the private banker is not charging the taxpayers interest. They are real money and pass today as full legal tender. If all the money in use in this country were issued by the United States government, we would not have periods in which the volume of money suddenly diminished for some ‘mysterious’ reason. U.S. Notes draw no interest on their creation, and they cannot be recalled.”890 In short, U.S. Notes provide no profit for the private banking interests whereas Federal Reserve Notes do.

However, for the record, we will cite here the correct explanation as to why 1) U.S. Notes were indeed issued during the Kennedy era and why 2) U.S. Notes appear to now be “withdrawn” from circulation.

The fact is that an act of Congress passed on May 31, 1878 declared that the U.S. Treasury is required to keep $322,539,016 in U.S. Notes in circulation at all times.

However, as a Treasury Department officer, Rudy Villareal, thendirector of the Currency Operations Division at the Treasury Department admitted to The Spotlight in a 1982 interview, the Treasury itself was not issuing U.S. Notes into circulation even though it was mandated to do so by the long-standing congressional legislation. He said that the U.S. Notes were put in the so-called issue vault, but, as The Spotlight commented, “it
would appear that by some sort of semantic wizardry, the bureaucrats consider these locked-up notes to qualify as ‘circulating’ currency.'”

In fact, it does appear that the last time U.S. Notes were introduced into the economy was during the JFK administration, but—to repeat—it was done not by the special executive order issued by the president that is so often cited by those who say that “The Federal Reserve Killed JFK.”

Instead, the issuance of U.S. Notes during the Kennedy era was done in pursuance of a law already on the books. Those who cite an executive order by JFK that, in fact, refers to Silver Certificates, are making a big mistake and—unintentionally or not—are doing a disservice to serious research in theJFK assassination conspiracy. I cannot overemphasize this fact.

The Spotlight published these stories to try to counteract the misinformation that it played a part in circulating, only to find that there have been so many people committed to the story and so determined to prove that “The Federal Reserve Killed JFK” that they have actually taken umbrage at The Spotlight’s efforts to set the record straight.

GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT

But suffice it to say that The Spotlight was not part of any “cover-up” of Fed involvement. Instead, The Spotlight was trying to get at the truth of the matter, no matter what the cost, and attempting to prevent sincere patriots and critics of the Fed from embarrassing themselves by circulating misinformation that will only make them look foolish and give further ammunition to the Fed when it seeks to discredit its critics.

I do indeed hope that this will set the record straight. There’s no doubt, as I’ve said, that the would-be Kennedy Dynasty had big plans to undo the Federal Reserve monopoly on America’s money, but EO 11,110 was most emphatically not part of that long-range plan.

This story does continue to pop up again and again despite the efforts by The Spotlight and others to set the record straight, it’s taken on a life of its own and I’m truly afraid that the story will never be put to rest.